Thankful

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever."
1 Chronicles 16:34

This Thanksgiving Day 2008, I have so much to be thankful for. I am so thankful for Chayah and that in just 3-6 weeks she will be coming home! It is by God's grace alone that our family will again experience the miracle of adoption and be blessed to have Chayah as a member of our family forever. I also must say how incredibly thankful I am to everyone who has given financially and in prayer; without you, this adoption would not be possible. I am so thankful.

Soon

Sarah, Mommy, and Daddy

Me, Chrissy, and Sarah

I'm really late at getting this post up. I just now downloaded pictures from my camera. These pictures are from last Thursday- celebrating our LOA at Pizza Hut.
I can't believe that tomorrow it will have been a week since we finally got it!! Now can I officially say 4-7 weeks 'til travel? That is coming up SO fast!
My mei mei is coming home soon!

LOA!

My beautiful mei mei, Chayah. You'll be home soon baby girl!!

I am just soooo excited!!! It is still so surreal that our LOA is actually here!! Well, waiting for it to arrive Fed-Ex to our house, but it is on its way from our agency- it should be here within a few hours! Getting our LOA means that once my parents sign it and send it back to China, our TA (Travel Approval) will be issued- meaning that we can then go to China for CHAYAH! This is what our agency has told us regarding travel: "At this time our estimate for your travel is five to eight weeks! I understand from our Travel Department that there is chance you would be traveling over the holidays." Five to eight weeks from yesterday, November 13th would be somewhere within December 18th to January 8th. In December/January, Chayah will be HOME!!!! It is finally happening! After all of this waiting... Chayah is going to be coming home! Our LOI (Letter of Intent) to adopt Chayah was sent on December 21, 2007- one year before she will be coming home! We do not know the dates that we will be traveling yet, but the best estimate our agency has given us is that we should be traveling sometime between December 18th and January 8th- just five to eight weeks away!!!

IT CAME!!!!!!!!!!!

After 133 long days of waiting- IT CAME!!!!!!!!!! Our LOA came today!!!!!!!!! Oh, I can barley type right now cause we just found out a few seconds ago.... AHHHH!!!!!!!! Chayah is coming home!!!!!!!!!!! Our God is an AWESOME God!!!!!!!!!!! Our LOA was perfectly on time!!!! Hooray!!! Chayah is coming home!!!!!!!!! WE HAVE OUR LOA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wait?

There's my beautiful mei mei! (Picture taken in March 08-cropped)

Tomorrow will be day 130 of our wait. It is much too long, but I just have to keep telling myself that it will come. The wait seems to never end and it is hard to think that Chayah may not be home for Christmas after all... The verse that I posted a few weeks back HERE has been such an encouragement during this wait. I looked it up in The Message translation and it is so true!
"It aches for the coming—it can hardly wait! And it doesn't lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It's on its way. It will come right on time."
Habakkuk 2:3
Day 130 is a lot longer than I thought we would have to wait, and all of this waiting is getting really hard, but I know that our LOA (letter of acceptance) will come and be right on time!